


Order and Chaos

by LookBetweenTheLines



Series: Complaints of a Hero [11]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: All the stress, M/M, Male!WoL - Freeform, Miqo'te!WoL - Freeform, Original Character - Freeform, Past Lovers, Pining, Spoilers for 5.2, Stress, but no more than that, talk of past sexual encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookBetweenTheLines/pseuds/LookBetweenTheLines
Summary: Just when he thought it was over. Just when everything seemed to be under control. Who can Z'kila turn to when he's starting to question himself, his purpose, his title?
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Complaints of a Hero [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1400026
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Order and Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Because I really liked the ending scene of 5.2's MSQ, but the person I really wanted to see wasn't an option so I made my own. There's talk of past sexual encounters but it doesn't go further than that. I hope you enjoy!

Z'kila was rather impressed with his own composure during the audience with not-Ardbert, and with G’raha and the Scions in the Ocular, all things considered. He kept his own counsel, his thoughts to himself and expressions hidden behind a near-perfect mask of neutrality. 

But he let it all fall away when he retired to his private room in the Pendants. He closed the door on the rest of the world, sagged against the wood and covered his face with both hands, screaming into his palms. He hadn't screamed in frustration perhaps ever before; but everything about this day had tried his patience at every turn. 

When he was out of breath he turned to lock his door with an angry twist of his wrist and stormed into the room proper. 

First another bloody Ascian _dared_ show himself in another's long-deceased body. Ardbert's body. Seeing his ghostly companion again moons after their last stand together had sent a sickening jolt straight through his gut. The sight had been a shock, a friendly face hiding the mind of an old enemy. He'd known immediately. He and Ardbert had been bound together since he first set foot on the First, and though his mind had departed after lending his strength for the last time his soul was still bound to Z'kila in some fashion. They couldn't talk like before, but he could still feel his presence. The shade puppeteering Ardbert's body was… Z'kila felt physically sick thinking on it too much. He kicked the leg of one of the stools around the dining table, which threatened to topple over and banged back to the floor. 

Then the... _trick_ Elidibus pulled, conjuring an illusion of a star shower. Convincing an entire crowd of Crystarium soldiers and citizens that they were chosen Warriors of Light. Sending a good half of them out into a realm still full of sin eaters with no adventuring experience whatsoever and leaving the city half-guarded at best. Z'kila paced the length of the room and back again, looking for something he could hit or break that wouldn't be missed. He picked up a vase but couldn’t bring himself to shatter it; he placed it down again on a cabinet across the room. He kicked the bedstand instead.

Z'kila himself had waved off two ex-guards as they took flight on amaros to Twelve knew where, spouting the same rubbish General Aldyn had given him. Fortune didn’t _favour_ anybody in this world, perhaps the bold least of all. You were either lucky or you weren't. But Z'kila had been urged to give the pair of them some advice, some kind of heartfelt farewell and he'd obliged. Just like always; he did as he was told, knowing full well he was sending them both to their deaths. He shuck off his coat and let it fall in a heap on the floor. 

And then there was the business down in the ruins of the Tempest, of the holographic recording of the Amarotine citizen who sacrificed himself to summon Hydaelyn. Z'kila laughed harshly at his own expense for nearly forgetting, tugging at the buckles on his greaves. And this assumption that Elidibus was but a title, the successor to the individual who sacrificed himself to become Zodiark's heart. He couldn't imagine what that might begin to mean; if the Ascian they knew was a self-proclaimed emissary, could they presume that his predecessor was also? If that was the case, why would an emissary be sacrificed? 

Z'kila growled to himself and kicked off his greaves, leaving them, too, where they fell. There was too much he didn't know, and what he did know he couldn't understand. His bracers found themselves on the dining table, along with the belt that held his sheathed daggers. Elidibus was posing as a Warrior of Light, encouraging as many others as he could to become Warriors themselves. _To save the world,_ he had claimed. But which world? Certainly not the First; his choice of _Light_ hadn't gone unnoticed. 

Pulling his tunic over his head and shimmying out of his breeches, Z'kila stood before the closed balcony doors in his skivvies and stared at the ceiling, breathing deep and consciously slow. His armour had been constraining, suffocating in a way that was usually comforting. Fresh bruises scattered across his chest and back—that ondo matriarch had been vicious and the water unforgiving. 

Elidibus was less trying to create more heroes as making people _believe_ they were heroes; and Z'kila knew all too well the warped power of belief. Heroes of Light, encouraged to go out into the world and help those in need; every small crisis averted, every minor inconvenience solved. So many people on the Source associated Hydaelyn and Light and Z'kila himself now with the essence of _good_ ness; that Light was the force of good and Darkness the force of evil. But that's not what it meant; Z'kila wasn't an icon of _good,_ he was a bringer of _order_. Hydaelyn was the shackles of order on the chaotic Zodiark. True peace was neither one or the other, but a balance of both. 

A whole army of Warriors of Light would bring order in the extreme to the First. Z'kila could only guess that he was trying to start the flood right back up again. And by telling the true story of Ardbert and the rest of his party… Z'kila had done most of the legwork for him. 

Z'kila clawed his hands into his hair and gripped the bases of his ears, digging in with his nails. Everything he had done, every battle, every sacrifice, was about to be undone in the space of a heartbeat. 

His gear really needed attention; the salt needed to be washed out of it and then hung up to dry properly, but he had no energy for that sort of busy work. It would have to stay where it had fallen for the night. Z'kila collapsed into the bed and cocooned himself in the blanket, praying sleep would come quickly and spare his mind any further torment for at least a few hours. 

Alas, it was not to be. 

He turned this way and that on the mattress, tangling his legs and tail in the sheets. Too hot, then too cold. Eyes squeezed shut or wide open. His mind whirling between _what kind of idiot thinks he can be 'chosen' when the entire crowd says the same thing_ and _what if all those people go out and die and I just let them?_

After an hour or maybe an eternity of restless thoughts and equally restless fidgeting, Z’kila flopped onto his back and threw an arm over his eyes. Elidibus had awoken the echo in so many people in an instant with a simple illusion. So many people without guidance, without knowing what it meant or what it could do. 

And in so doing the Ascian had revealed that the echo wasn’t a gift at all as the Scions had believed. It was innate to them all. And one simple image could awaken it in anyone. 

Z’kila fought his way out of the blanket and swung his bare feet onto the cool floor. He needed water- to drink or dunk his head in, he wasn’t sure yet. If Elidibus managed to restart the flood- he didn’t think he could go through that again. Destroying the Lightwardens had nearly killed him, and he wouldn’t have Ardbert to save him from the Light’s corruption a second time. 

The room had darkened to a soothing dimness that eased some of his tension. The sharp cold tiles on the soles of his feet helped to ground him. 

Staring at the jug a moment, Z’kila decided he needed a drink more than a shower. He sat down on the stool he’d kicked and sipped at his cup. The bruise on his shoulder was growing to encompass most of his left collarbone, and Z’kila idly thought that it resembled the bodies of Midgardsormr and the _Agrius_ as they looked stuck into the crystallised lake of Mor Dhona. 

Someone knocked before he could finish his cup. Z’kila scowled at the door and considered ignoring it. It wasn’t so late that a visit would be rude, but late enough that he could conceivably be asleep. The idea of opening the door in nothing but his undergarments to scare off whoever it was passed through his mind as well. But it could easily be Alisae or Ryne and he couldn’t do that sort of thing to them. 

‘Master Tia? Apologies for the late hour, but you have a guest.’ 

Z’kila bristled. No, he had not explained to the Pendants manager that _Tia_ was not a _surname_ because that would involve trying to explain an entire culture which did not exist on the First. Nevertheless, being addressed as such was still rude.

He sighed, threw on a thin robe and went to answer it. Maybe a distraction would help, after all.

Bright ruby eyes greeted him. ‘Good evening, Kila. It occurred to me that I sent you to rest without a chance for dinner. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ G’raha held up a basket of sandwiches, looking easily as delicious as the last batch he’d brought. 

Z’kila wasn’t at all hungry, his belly too full of its own knots to even consider a meal. He tried to figure out whether he wanted company or to be left alone to stew on his thoughts. Regardless, he could never turn G’raha away. He said nothing and stepped aside to let his visitor into his room. G’raha breezed inside and set the sandwiches down in the middle of the table.

‘Did you witness my temper tantrum?’ Z’kila asked as he closed the door. 

G’raha smiled sheepishly and scratched at the edge of one ear. ‘I was checking up on you and may have noticed you seemed a little… agitated.’ 

Z’kila snorted. _Agitated._ He’d been kicking and screaming, quite literally.

‘I must thank you for not destroying the vase, though you would have been quite welcome to,’ G’raha went on, a mischievous glimmer in his eye. ‘Quite an ugly thing, don’t you think?’ 

It was rather unsightly, barely large enough to hold a single flower and covered in a multicolour of swirls and splashes. But the Crystarium was constructed of what little survivors of the First had managed to salvage, and he wasn’t about to smash something aesthetically unappealing to his eye just because he was angry. ‘It is, but I’m not quite that out of control.’ 

G’raha sobered. ‘No. Of course not.’ 

Z’kila sat back down by his cup and leant on his hand, slouching. G’raha took the seat opposite and, in a very un-Exarch-like manner, mirrored him. The robe Z’kila had thrown on gaped open around his neck to reveal much of his chest and barely fell to mid-thigh. Had anyone else been on the other side of the door he might have been uncomfortable with how much skin he was showing, but G’raha had seen far more of him than this. Looking at him now, Z'kila wondered if, should they find themselves sharing a bed once again, G'raha would resort to the same tail-pulling, ear-biting shenanigans of his youth, or if time had made him more reserved. It was an idle pondering and not one Z'kila had the energy to pursue that night. 

For a while neither of them spoke, and Z’kila found the silent company something of a comfort. G’raha hadn’t brought his staff with him, oddly enough, and he was leaning on his left side. 

‘What do you think he’s up to, Raha?’ he asked eventually. 

G’raha shrugged, looking far more like the G’raha Tia that helped him explore the Crystal Tower back on the Source. ‘If only I knew. He certainly won’t be as forthcoming as Emet-Selch, of that we can be sure.’ 

‘And yet he told us about the relation between the star shower and the echo quite freely,’ Z’kila pointed out. 

‘Ah,’ G’raha straightened up a little. ‘ _That,_ I believe, served a dual purpose.’ At Z’kila’s raised brow he went on, ‘He revealed that the echo is not a gift but an innate ability. In so doing he’s challenging our citizens to question the mantle of heroism, to question you and your deeds, I suspect. Everything we work towards now will be slowed by questions.’ He paused, and then added softly, ‘I suppose getting _you_ to question yourself as well would be an added bonus for him.’

‘But what if he’s right? What if I’m not special, what if I’m just someone Hydaelyn plucked out of the lifestream at random?’ 

‘Your actions are what make you special, Kila,’ G’raha said gently. ‘Chosen at random or otherwise, it was _you_ who took down the Ultima Weapon-’

Z’kila snorted, ‘Funny you mention that…’ 

‘-who ended a thousand-year war, who liberated two separate nations on opposite sides of the star, who traversed worlds to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity.’ 

‘That last one was more you than me.’

‘My point is,’ G’raha said with an exasperated sigh, ‘the echo might not be a gift, but Hydaelyn’s blessing certainly is, and one that you earned. You proved yourself a worthy adversary _without_ it anyway during your time in Coerthas and Dravania, as I recall.’ 

Z’kila narrowed his eyes. ‘How would you know about that?’

G’raha smiled lopsidedly, one corner rising higher than the other. ‘We found Count Edmont’s memoir.’

Z’kila stopped himself short of saying, ‘Oh, right.’ He wasn’t sure his friend needed to know that the echo had shown him the conversation he’d had with Urianger. What came out instead was, ‘Do you think we’re just Her thralls?’ He blinked as soon as he said it, as surprised as G’raha was by the question. The thought had passed through his mind before, but he hadn’t realised he’d been so bothered by the possibility. 'What if- What if the star shower is a way of tempering all of us, and the echo a byproduct? What if all we're doing is _not_ for the greater good, and She just makes us believe that it is?'

He was aware he was stepping in the realms of philosophy and speculation, neither of which were his specialities, but, hells, if he was already on the road to an existential crisis he may as well ride it out. 

G'raha blinked at him. '...I have to admit, I know of no kind of primal tempering that can be mimicked by another.' 

'...No. No, of course not, you're right.' Z'kila shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. He was far too tired for this kind of thought. He felt silly for even asking the question, but… perhaps not the illusion, but Hydaelyn was as much a primal as any of those he had slain. She had followers and worshippers just the same. Surely there was some kind of tempering involved? 

'Besides,' said G'raha, leaning across the table to lower himself into Z'kila's field of view and grinning, 'any tempering that leaves one able to consider the very possibility of being wrong is highly ineffective indeed.' 

A small smile clawed its way onto Z'kila's mouth and he shook his head. 'You're quite right. Forgive my pathetic self-pity.'

'Hardly pathetic,' G'raha countered. ‘I would say it’s a very reasonable level of self-pity.’ 

Z’kila laughed. ‘I said I’d stop wallowing in my own problems. I’m working on it.’ 

‘It’s okay to be a person, Kila. You don’t have to be a hero _all_ the time.’ 

‘You should take your own advice sometimes, Raha.’ His companion looked surprised by that response, eyebrows raised and ears pricked. ‘I can see your arm’s hurting you and yet you come to comfort me. Look after yourself for once.’ G’raha lowered his ears and lowered his gaze to the table, turning his shoulders just fractionally as though he could hide his crystal arm. ‘...Has something happened?’ 

‘Ah, just a periodic side effect,’ he said, wiggling blue fingers and trying to hide the effort it took.

Z’kila raised one eyebrow. ‘Why don’t I believe that?’ 

G’raha did not raise his eyes. He remained turned aside to hide his arm, just the tips of crystal fingers peeking over the edge of the table. He looked as though he tried to smile reassuringly, but it had turned into a grimace halfway onto his face. His ears flopped to the side instead of pinning back like usual. Perhaps spending extended periods of time under the heavy hood had rendered them weaker than the average miqo’te ear. 

'Forget I said that,' Z'kila said, softening. 'If you say it's nothing, then it's nothing.'

G'raha flashed him a small, grateful smile before he shifted his gaze to look over Z'kila's shoulder, as though meeting his eyes was difficult. ‘Your coat will wrinkle if you leave it on the floor.’ 

Z’kila huffed a short laugh in half-hearted amusement. ‘I’ll clean and press it in the morning. When I’m less… agitated.’ 

‘If you would oblige me to-’

‘No.’ Z’kila scowled at his friend, urging him back into his seat with his gaze alone. ‘After everything you have sacrificed, I will not permit you to clean up after me too.’ G’raha sat obediently with his hands in his lap, eyes wide with surprise at the sudden declaration and shifting between Z’kila and the discarded coat. 

‘...But really, it’s no-’

‘ _Raha._ ’ 

G’raha wrinkled his nose like he was suppressing the urge to stick out his tongue. It was an expression so out of place on the Crystal Exarch but so suited G’raha Tia that a giggle bubbled from Z’kila’s chest. 

G’raha, for a moment, looked affronted. ‘I’ll have you know I’m old enough to be your great-grandfather, and there you sit with barely your essentials covered, at once scolding and laughing at me.’ His words were harsh but a twitch in his ears and one corner of his mouth gave him away. Z’kila snorted. 

‘I’ll have you know that in my time there are only two summers between us, and everyone assumed I was the elder.’ 

‘Yes, well, the destroying of primals and Allagan monstrosities may have played a part in aging you beyond your years.’ 

‘And the white hair has done nothing to age you.’ 

G’raha lifted his uncrystallized hand to play with a strand of said whitened hair above his eyes. The way it still grew the same reddish-brown Z’kila remembered from their time in NOAH but faded to white led him to believe it was less a result of G’raha’s age and more likely a side effect of his aetheric connection to the Tower. His face looked no older either- save the lines and shadows of tiredness. He had otherwise kept his youth despite his long life, but at what price? Z’kila eyed G’raha’s right side but held his tongue. 

‘Do you not think so?’ G’raha asked, examining the white strands between his fingers and oblivious to Z’kila’s concern. ‘I thought it aged me rather gracefully.’ 

‘Ha!’ Z’kila barked. ‘You still look about sixteen summers to me. Just with white highlights and fancy robes now.’ 

G’raha dropped his hand back to the table and narrowed his eyes. ‘I do not look sixteen.’ 

‘You don’t look a-hundred-and-whatever either.’ 

‘Are those my only options? Adolescence, or three steps from death?’

Z’kila frowned. ‘You had best stay at least a thousand malms from death, or else I’ll add it to my list of things to destroy.’ 

‘Destroy death? How poetic.’ 

‘Raha.’ 

‘Goodness, Kila, you’ve said my name more times tonight than you did that evening at the doors of Syrcus Tower all those summers ago. Do you remember? I suppose you were wearing much the same then as now.’ 

Z’kila’s eyebrows shot up as a blush pooled across his cheeks and quickly spread across the rest of his face. He was hardly shy about past dalliances but he hadn’t expected that particular night to be brought up out of nowhere. Well, perhaps not nowhere; it was easy to forget he was showing off most of his chest when G’raha was fully robed on the other side of the table. He shook his head like he could shake away the memory of sore ears and aching tail, as well as an ache of a different sort in his groin. ‘I’m serious. You’d best not be going anywhere.’ 

‘Are we speaking in the cosmological sense or the here and now?’ G’raha asked, grinning in a way that showed off sharp canines. 

Z’kila gave up, his mouth flattening into a thin line. ‘If you’re trying to proposition me then I ought to tell you I’m far too tired for such exertion tonight.’ 

G’raha sobered, but his smile remained. ‘Apologies. It was my intention to tease, not seduce.’ He rested both hands on the table and pushed himself up, wincing on his crystal arm and trying with obvious effort to hide it. ‘I will take my leave of you now and let you rest. The sandwiches should keep until the morrow.’ 

He made a show of sighing at the heap of coat on the floor as he made to leave. Z’kila tried to smile, unsure how successful he was, and walked a few paces behind him to the door. At the threshold G’raha paused and said, ‘We will get through this. Together. You don’t have to face this alone.’ 

‘My thanks,’ Z’kila said. He meant it; the reassurance was welcome, but on a selfish level he wanted G’raha to stay. Just to be with him, no conversation was necessary. But he couldn’t ask that of him, as pained and tired as he was. So he did a better job of putting on a smile and added, ‘No more spying on me at night. It’s weird.’ 

G’raha looked falsely contrite and scratched the back of an ear. ‘Apologies. Next time I’ll ask first.’

Z’kila rolled his eyes and closed the door on him. He stayed there, forehead leaning on the wood like he could linger in his presence for just a moment longer. Too many seconds passed before he heard G’raha’s retreating footsteps. He sighed and pushed himself away. There was little point in pining now.

A gust of chill air greeted him when he opened his balcony doors, soothing his tense and worrisome thoughts. Well, the breeze and the shoebill, perched on the railing like always. A blink the only giveaway that it wasn’t a statuette. Z’kila grimaced and leant on the railing next to it. He had spent moons trying to shoo the bird away when he first settled into this room to no avail. It was just another ghost to follow him around now. ‘If it isn’t G’raha staring at me it’s _you._ ’ 

The shoebill blinked. 

Z’kila huffed and turned his attention to the night sky. ‘Suit yourself. I’m really not all that special.’


End file.
